


Asylum - Coda

by Jinx (jinx37kat)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-25
Updated: 2005-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-16 12:16:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9270803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinx37kat/pseuds/Jinx
Summary: What (should've) happened between leaving the asylum and the phone call from Dad.





	

“Hey Dean. I’m sorry man. I… I said some awful things back there,” Sam said digging his hands in his coat pockets and shifting from foot to foot.

“You remember all that,” Dean said expressionlessly.

“Yeah. It’s like I couldn’t control it. But I didn’t mean it. Any of it.”

Dean nodded. “You didn’t, huh?” It sounded as though Dean didn’t believe Sam; and Sam was quick to pick up on that.

“No. Of course not,” Sam defended.

Dean nodded his head again, a corner of his mouth curling up incredulously, clearly not believing one word from his brother’s mouth.

“Do we need to talk about this?” Sam asked. He was feeling unbalanced. Usually Dean let things like this slide off his back.

But his own brother usually doesn’t try to kill him either, Sam’s consciousness mocked. If there had been bullets in that gun…

“No.” Dean turned to the window and tossed their weapons bag in the back seat. “I’m not really in the sharing, caring kind of mood. I just wanna get some sleep.” He yanked open the car door and got in.

Sam was slower to get in the car, but when he did, Dean laid some serious rubber as they showed the asylum their backside.

The drive to the motel was silent and tense. Sam kept looking over at Dean, knowing that his brother was mulling over what had happened last night. Every so often, he would see Dean wince and knew that his chest was hurting him more than Dean would ever let on. Getting shot almost point-blank range with a shot-gun, even filled with rock salt, was bound to hurt like hell.

By the time that got to their room, Sam was no closer to figuring out how to breach the gulf that had split between them than when they had first left the asylum.

“Dean,” Sam started as he got out of the car.

Dean got out as well and moved to the back, popping the trunk and pulling out two bags. He left the trunk open for Sam and started for the door.

“Dean, c’mon. We have to talk about this.”

Dean unlocked the door. “There’s nothing to talk about Sam. I just want a shower and the bed. In that order.”

“But…” Sam tried to protest but knew from the set of Dean’s shoulders that any attempt to talk to him would shut him up tighter than a clam shell.

Sighing, Sam went to the back and pulled out his own bag, slamming the trunk in frustration before following his brother inside.

Dean was already locked behind the bathroom door by the time Sam shut the motel room door behind him. Not really wanting to be there when Dean came out for more of his brother’s silent treatment, he went and banged on the door of the bathroom.

“Dean. I’m gonna go grab something at the vending machine. You want anything?”

“No,” came Dean’s terse reply.

“Fine,” Sam mumbled to himself and left the room.

* * * * *

Dean couldn’t have been more thankful that Sam had decided to leave. He didn’t want to deal with the half-ass apologies Sam was bound to give. He was in no mood for Sam to explain himself out of the notion that he apparently hated Dean so much that he was willing to kill him.

Dean barricaded himself in the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. He could see faint patches of dried blood on his tee shirt underneath the outer shirt and jacket he wore. 

Slowly removing the leather jacket with a groan, Dean let it slide off his arms and drop forgotten to the floor behind him. Gingerly, he pealed back his open shirt to find nine sporadic holes in his tee shirt square in the middle of his chest. Five of them had bled through the shirt causing the shirt to stick to his chest. 

Sighing heavily, Dean gritted his teeth as he removed the rest of his clothes, except the tee shirt. Leaning over the bath tub, he flicked on the water and pulled the knob for the shower, waiting for the water to hit the right temperature. Once it was as hot as he could stand it, Dean got into the shower with his tee shirt still on and stood in front of the spray.

His teeth clenched in pain and he pounded the hell out of the wall. “Son of a fucking bitch!” He yelled, teeth starting to ache with the pain of biting down so hard. But it took a little away from the pain in his chest. Well, the physical pain in his chest anyway. The heartache in his chest was another thing altogether and would never heal, no matter how hot the water or how hard he clenched his teeth.

“Fuck!” He screamed as the spray hit a particularly sensitive spot. He smashed the side of his fist against the wall again and dropped his head down between his shoulders, eyes pinched shut to keep the tears from escaping. 

Once he was sure that he would be able to get his tee shirt off without ripping the scabs open, he slowly pulled the soaking shirt away from his chest, making sure that it was no longer sticking to his wounds. He pulled it over his head, groaning as the movement of his arms brought yet more pain to his already aching body. 

He let the shirt drop to the tub floor and stared down at the abrasions on his chest. Aside from nine bleeding wounds, there were another seven welts that had already colored blue, purple and red, two were practically black. It was no wonder he could feel every single breath he took. He was going to be sore for weeks.

Dean let the water clean as much of the injury as possible, not only cleansing it of cloth pieces but of the salt that the bullets were made of. Talk about rubbing salt in a wound… this was taking that to the extreme. Once he was sure they were as clean as they were going to get, he kicked off the shower and got out. 

He wrapped a towel around his waist and stood in front of the mirror again. He silently gasped at the almost circular pattern on his chest. A couple of them were oozing blood again and he reached out for the first aid kit that he’d brought in with him and started the process of bandaging himself up.

Normally Sam would have helped him. And in any other circumstances, Dean would have been more than happy to let him. But these were not normal circumstances. In fact, Sam was the cause of these holes in his chest in the first place. 

Rock salt bullets may not kill, but anything coming out of a shot-gun at point blank range was bound to cause some serious injury. Hell, the rock salt that Kat had blasted at him earlier took chunks out of the cement wall! It was a miracle that Dean wasn’t more hurt than he already was.

Dean prepared little gauze square and proceeded to cover each of the oozing, bleeding wounds. By the time he was finished, his chest was covered in seven white squares. Two of them were already bleeding through, so he doubled up on the gauze and covered them up again.

Sighing, Dean gave himself one last look before putting the toilet seat down and sitting heavily on the lid.

He hurt so much he was surprised that he was actually sitting up straight. But it wasn’t just the physical pain. To hear those words from his little brother… It had hurt him more than he was willing to admit. And to think… if he hadn’t removed the bullets before handing over that gun…? That was most shocking of all. 

He told Sam to do it… to shoot him. Egged him on even. He did so because Dean knew that there was no way that Sam was capable of going through with it. There would be no way that Sam could kill his own brother.

Hell was Dean ever wrong.

If he hadn’t removed the bullets from that gun, he would be dead. Sam had pulled the trigger three times. Three times! At point blank range one would have done the job. But three times?

Trying to make sure I was really dead, huh, Sammy? Dean thought to himself. Dean knew that the second and third time was because the first hadn’t worked. And the disappointment in Sam’s eyes when the gun clicked on an empty chamber … Dean rubbed his eyes tiredly and shook his head. Just another bit ripped out of his heart by his brother. At the rate he was going, there would be nothing left within a few months.

The past two months had been proof enough of that.

Sam had been less than pleased when Dean had asked for help in finding their dad in the first place. Then Sam was mad that Dean hadn’t let him die with Jess. Then he was angry that they helped Hailey try to rescue her brother from the Wendigo. And it pretty much escalated from there. Every single job they had gone on, Sam found something to be pissed at Dean about. Hell, he was even pissed over what the skinwalker told him when it was using Dean’s body.

Pissed! Of all things, Sam was mad… at Dean. 

The skinwalker had apparently told Sam a lot of Dean’s closely held secrets about how Dean had felt about Sam’s leaving…things that Dean kept hidden deep, deep inside. If anyone should have been angry, it should have been Dean. That ‘thing’ told Sam his own inner-most pain, his locked up secrets, things he never wanted Sam to know lest his little brother have the audacity to feel sorry for him. 

But that never happened. Sam was actually angry because Dean never told him how he felt. Well, this wasn’t the Dr. Phil show. There would be no sharing of feelings here. Especially since his heart was so torn up and shredded as it was. That’s why he hid behind his wall of sarcasm and indifference. He wasn’t sure he’d survive if he let the pain out of its box.

And only a few weeks ago, Sam forced him to face his darkest fear… going back home. He swore up and down that he would never, never go back to Lawrence again. Never! But, he went. For Sam. And Sam spent so much time worrying about the people in their old house that he couldn’t even spare a thought for how Dean was feeling. 

Hell! He even asked, sarcastically he might add, if Dean was just going to treat this as just another job. Not knowing, or caring for that matter, how those words sliced through his soul, removing yet another chunk from his already battered heart. 

He was so torn up about being back and hearing those words from his little brother, that Dean had feigned needing to use the restroom to call his dad and beg for him to come to Lawrence. He begged his father for help. Begged!

Then, to add insult to an already injured soul, he got to see his mom again. That part was fantastic for all of about a second. To see his mom again. See her smile. Her beautiful blonde hair. Hair that he used to bury his face in when he woke up from a bad dream. Hear her speak him name. Remembering her voice as she read him his favorite book, Green Eggs and Ham. All of this took place in a fraction of a second. Because she said his name… and then walked right by him as though he weren’t even there.

He could only look on in amazement, heart shattering into a million pieces as she went to Sam, smiling and looking at her youngest with a love shining from her eyes that Dean had never seen before. Well, not aimed at him anyway. Even when he was a little boy.

He knew then that all his well placed illusions from childhood were just that… illusions. He had romanticized his mom. She had been perfect to his four year old eyes; and all that had disappeared in that one second twenty two years later.

And all Dean had been able to do was watch as his mom ignored him and went to Sam. Watch as she turned her back on him and sacrifice herself for Sam… again.

So, not only was he not worth it to his dad, but apparently he wasn’t worth it to his mom either.

And after tonight, he realized with a clarity that was like sight to a blind man, he wasn’t even worth it to his own brother – who had been more than willing to kill him… he hated him so much.

Depleted of all his energy, Dean somehow managed to stand. He grabbed two Vicodin from their stash in the med-kit and downed them. Avoiding looking into the mirror lest he see the ruins of who he thought he was; Dean slowly padded out of the bathroom, sighing with relief that Sam had not returned from his vending machine run.

It was odd, since he must have been in the bathroom well over an hour, but Dean couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. All he wanted to do was lay down and go to sleep and not think about anything… at all… for as long as possible.

Crawling into his bed, Dean pulled the sheet and blanket gingerly over his sore chest and closed his eyes. He normally liked to sleep on his stomach, keeping a hand under his pillow in easy reach of his knife. But tonight, he honestly could say that if something supernatural were to come for him, he’d let them have him.

He was too tired to fight.

* * * * *

Sam came back into the room a few hours later. He figured he would give Dean the space that his big brother had obviously wanted.

It had been hard to see Dean not blow off or make a sarcastic joke when Sam said that he didn’t mean what he said when he’d been possessed by that doctor in the asylum. Instead, for the first time that Sam could remember, Dean actually called him on his pathetic excuse of an apology.

Instead of saying something like, ‘Oh, hey, Sammy, no problem. I know you didn’t mean it. We’re brothers, right?’ Dean had countered with an incredulous, ‘You didn’t, huh?’ Completely and totally not believe Sam’s apology.

And Sam couldn’t be sure if he was sorry or not.

No, that wasn’t right. Of course he was sorry. He was sorry for the hateful things he had said and the way they came out. But, if truth be told, some of the stuff had been bottled up for awhile now, and he wasn’t sorry about some of it.

But the small grain of truth in a package of lies and anger doesn’t help the fact that Sam had tried to kill his brother tonight. Kill him because he was so mad at everything that had gone wrong in his life that he was willing to take his big brother’s life to make himself feel better. As though it were Dean’s fault for all of the bad things that had happened to Sam.

It wasn’t.

He knew that. Really! He did. But convincing Dean of that was another story. Especially with the trying-to-kill-your-brother thing that had happened that night.

Sam carefully opened the door and was relieved to see Dean sleeping on the second bed furthest from the door.

He quietly went into the bathroom, flicking on the lights after he’d closed the door so as not to disturb Dean. When he turned around, the sight that greeted him caused him to gasp in horror. 

Dean’s leather jacket lay in a heap on the floor along with a shirt, Dean’s jeans, socks and boots. In the bathtub were the tattered remains of Dean’s tee shirt, bloodied holes still streaking red trails slowly down the basin towards the drain. The counter had bits of gauze and tape scattered around, and a pair of scissors sat open and askew on a towel. Dots of dried blood were speckled around the porcelain sink, counter and even the mirror. He looked down and saw blood even on the floor.

Fear gripped Sam and he bolted from the bathroom to his brother’s side. He ripped the blankets back and stood wide-eyed at Dean’s body. Square bandages covered most of Dean’s chest. 

Dean moaned slightly in his sleep, but didn’t otherwise move.

Sam stood staring at Dean in complete and utter shock. He had done this. He had done this to his own brother! The repercussions of his actions hadn’t hit him until this very second.

Dean could have died tonight and it would have been Sam’s fault. It would have been at Sam’s hand!

He barely tipped himself backward enough to fall down sitting on the edge of his bed as he continued to stare at his brother’s injured body. Injured because of him… by him!

He dropped to his knees and knelt by Dean’s bed, tentatively reaching out a shaking hand to lightly touch Dean’s chest. A few of the makeshift bandages were showing a spot of red, meaning that those wounds where obviously the worst of the lot and were either still bleeding or had bled pretty badly after Dean had put the bandages on.

Sam was sure that the bleeding had stopped. He had been gone for over an hour. If they were still bleeding, there would have been a lot more blood.

Sam shook his head. 

It didn’t matter. The fact remained that Dean had been hurt to this degree and hadn’t said one word. Not that Dean usually complained about his injuries. He didn’t. But they usually patched each other up after their close calls. And this was as close as you can get and still live.

But Sam remembered that he had left, leaving Dean to his own devices. Leaving Dean to fix himself up. And considering that it was Sam who had done this in the first place, would Dean have even let Sam help him? He didn’t know.

It didn’t change the fact that he should have stayed. Should have been there to help Dean cleanse and bandage his wounds. But instead, Sam had run off because he knew that his big brother was mad at him. Went to hide where Dean couldn’t find him like he used to do when he was little. 

Not that Dean lost his temper with Sam very often when they were younger. But there had been a few times in the past, much like now, that Sam had run off to pout like the little nine year-old he was acting like. And while Sam was off sulking like a brat, Dean had been left to patch up his wounds alone.

Sam removed his hand from Dean’s chest and curled his fingers around Dean’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Dean. I am. I know you don’t believe me, but…” Sam dropped so he was sitting on the floor and bowed his head, leaning it against the edge of the bed so he could see Dean’s sleeping face. “Dean. I hope one day you can forgive me.”

Sam stayed on the floor for another hour or so before he got up and moved to his own bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress just staring at Dean, watching the slight rise and fall of his brother’s chest. Making sure that Dean was indeed sleeping and nothing worse.

He had seen the open bottle of Vicodin on the counter in the bathroom and knew that Dean would be out for the rest of the afternoon, but Sam had an overwhelming need to keep an eye out on Dean. Sam would rather believe it was out of a sense of needing to protect Dean than the true meaning… guilt.

Sam crawled under the covers and lay down, vowing that he would make this up to Dean somehow… one day.

 

Finis  
11/25/05


End file.
